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Saturday 14 December 2024
Welcome to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, Fourth Edition. Some sample entries appear below. Click here for the Introduction; here for the masthead; here for Acknowledgments; here for the FAQ; here for advice on citations. Find entries via the search box above (more details here) or browse the menu categories in the grey bar at the top of this page.
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Beerbohm, Max
Working name of UK author, caricaturist, theatre critic (hailed by his Saturday Review predecessor George Bernard Shaw as "the incomparable Max") and later Radio broadcaster Henry Maximilian Beerbohm (1872-1956). He was initially known for witty and mannered essays published from 1894 in The Yellow Book, The Savoy and other London magazines, first assembled under the self-mockingly grandiose title ...
Sobchack, Vivian
(1940- ) US author of academic film criticism, notably The Limits of Infinity: The American Science Fiction Film 1950-1975 (1980), expanded as Screening Space: The American Science Fiction Film (1987), retaining the unaltered text of the earlier book but adding a long final chapter, "Postfuturism", which gives a reading of sf Cinema developed from the critical theories of Fredric ...
Kerr, A W
(1848-1934) Scottish author of Space: A Mirage (1913), in which an extremely early version of the Galactic Empire is sketched, though in allegorical terms involving spiritually advanced "celestials" who watch and ward over Earth, despite opposition from the Sardonics who inhabit a planet of that name. [JC]
Maynard, Richard
(1926- ) UK-born author, resident in Australia, whose The Coconut Book (1985), about a man stranded on an Island, is of some interest. The Quiet Place (1988; vt The Return 1988) rather overcomplicatedly describes the long hegira of a group of astronauts who, due to time dilation (see Relativity), find a Ruined Earth landscape on their ...
Teixeira, Kevin
(? - ) US author whose Near Future sf novel, A Virtual Soul (1999), follows the adventures of a Genetically Engineered Slave, victim of a Dystopian world conceived in Cyberpunk terms, as he attempts to acquire and assert a human-like Identity. ...
Nicholls, Peter
(1939-2018) Australian editor and author, primarily a critic and historian of sf through his creation and editing of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction [see below]; resident in the UK 1970-1988, in Australia from 1988; worked as an academic in English literature (1962-1968, 1971-1977), scripted television documentaries, was a Harkness Fellow in Film-making (1968-1970) in the USA, worked as a publisher's editor (1982-1983), often broadcast film and book reviews on BBC Radio from 1974 and ...